New Lifetime High Reached By Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE)

Editor's Note: Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of TheStreet, Inc. or any of its contributors including Jim Cramer or Stephanie Link.

Trade-Ideas LLC identified Hawaiian Electric Industries ( HE) as a new lifetime high candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Hawaiian Electric Industries as such a stock due to the following factors:

HE has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $23.2 million.

Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc., through its subsidiaries, is engaged in electric utility and banking businesses primarily in the State of Hawaii. The company is involved in the production, purchase, transmission, distribution, and sale of electricity. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 4.5%. HE has a PE ratio of 16.2. Currently there are 2 analysts that rate Hawaiian Electric Industries a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 3 rate it a hold.

The average volume for Hawaiian Electric Industries has been 787,800 shares per day over the past 30 days. Hawaiian Electric has a market cap of $2.8 billion and is part of the utilities sector and utilities industry. The stock has a beta of 0.36 and a short float of 20.3% with 28.48 days to cover. Shares are up 8.2% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Tuesday.

TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Hawaiian Electric Industries as a buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, increase in stock price during the past year, notable return on equity, good cash flow from operations and reasonable valuation levels. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income.

Highlights from the ratings report include:

Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 5.9%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 4.6%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share.

HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC INDS' earnings per share from the most recent quarter came in slightly below the year earlier quarter. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC INDS increased its bottom line by earning $1.62 versus $1.43 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($1.63 versus $1.62).

The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Electric Utilities industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC INDS has outperformed in comparison with the industry average, but has underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500.

Compared to where it was 12 months ago, the stock is up, but it has so far lagged the appreciation in the S&P 500. Turning our attention to the future direction of the stock, it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market. However, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year.

Net operating cash flow has slightly increased to $127.22 million or 9.73% when compared to the same quarter last year. Despite an increase in cash flow, HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC INDS's average is still marginally south of the industry average growth rate of 13.11%.